Mighty Old Morgan

Buzz—!

The Steam Guns in every Gray-robed Man's hands suddenly began to tremble violently, as if they had come alive and were desperately trying to break free from their owners' grasp.

"This is..." The leading Gray-robed Man paled in shock and desperately tried to pull the trigger.

But it was already too late.

Old Morgan suddenly clenched his metallic-sheened right fist.

"Explode."

Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!

Four explosions rang out almost simultaneously!

The barrels of every gun in the Gray-robed Men's hands burst apart instantly!

The shattered metal fragments seemed to have eyes, embedding themselves into their palms and faces from every angle.

Their gas masks were blown to pieces. Blood and chunks of flesh splattered everywhere, and screams instantly echoed through the rainy night.

"Argh! My hand!"

The Gray-robed Man squad, so arrogant just moments ago, now all dropped to their knees clutching their mangled palms and howling in pain.

Old Morgan slowly withdrew his hand. The metallic sheen on his skin gradually faded, and his face turned slightly pale.

He walked up to the leading Gray-robed Man and planted a foot on his face, crushing him directly to the ground.

He looked down at him from above.

"Who gave you the nerve to come cause trouble for the Night Watchers?"

"Letting you take the asset was already a favor to your president. Now get lost!"

A few minutes later.

The Gray-robed Men carried the unconscious man away, fleeing miserably into the rainy night like stray dogs.

The Clinic fell silent again, leaving only shattered glass and bloodstains all over the floor.

Lu Yuan stepped out from behind the counter and frowned at Old Morgan's slightly trembling hand.

Clearly, the move Old Morgan had just used exacted an enormous toll on him as well.

"Old Morgan, are you all right? Do you need me to take a look?"

Lu Yuan asked.

Old Morgan shook his head, pulled out a small silver flask from his pocket, and took a swig.

"I'm fine. Take the injured brothers downstairs first."

At Old Morgan's words, several Night Watchers wearing masks appeared outside at some point.

After they took away the injured Hidden Sentry, the Clinic returned to its previous silence.

Only the scattered sound of rain drifted in from time to time.

"Who were they?" Lu Yuan asked.

"The Ascension Society."

Old Morgan wiped the liquor from the corner of his mouth, his gaze dark. "A bunch of lunatics."

"Unlike us, who use Transcendence to fight the Eerie, those bastards believe that 'flesh is weak, Mechanical Ascension is the way.' They are obsessed with combining all kinds of transcendent items with machinery for living-body modifications, trying to create so-called 'perfect humans.'"

"If they weren't also loyal to the Empire, the Ascension Society would have been wiped out long ago! Their methods are no less vicious than those heretics."

At that, Old Morgan glanced at Lu Yuan, then at the operating table.

"Kid, you were lucky today. Those people have deep roots in the Empire's upper ranks. Keep a low profile from now on."

Lu Yuan nodded, staring thoughtfully at the tiny bit of black suture thread left on the operating table.

The Ascension Society was connected to the Iron Whale.

Because the stone inside the Mechanical Device within that man carried the aura of the Deep Sea.

Lu Yuan had every reason to suspect that stone was ore brought back by the Iron Whale.

It seemed the waters of Grim Port ran even deeper than I had imagined...

[Grim Port Status: +5, 32/50]

The rain finally stopped before dawn, but the air in Grim Port was still thick with the damp smell of coal ash.

Several craftsmen from the Logistics Department were repairing the Clinic's blasted door through the night. The sound of hammers striking wood rang especially sharply through the quiet night.

Old Morgan did not leave immediately. Since dawn had yet to break, he took the rare chance to rest for a while.

He leaned against a chair that had escaped the damage, a cigarette pinched between his fingers, his cloudy eyes fixed on Lu Yuan as he cleaned the floor.

"The next time you encounter those things from the Ascension Society, remember to run as far as you can."

Old Morgan struck a match and took a deep drag. Through the curling smoke, his expression was more serious than ever.

"Your Transcendence has only just begun. The early stages of the Eerie Pathway lean toward support and analysis. Direct confrontation isn't your strength. Don't use your brain to challenge their fists."

Lu Yuan stopped sweeping and voiced the question that had long lingered in his mind.

"That move just now... making the gun barrels burst directly. What ability was that? Did your Transcendence Pathway grant it to you?"

"Yeah."

Old Morgan held out his callused, scarred right hand and clenched it in the air. "That is the core ability of the [Knowledge Path · Third Order: Deconstructor]—[Structure Mastery]."

"Structure?"

"That's right. Everything has a structure. Buildings have load-bearing walls, guns have firing pins and springs, and human bodies have bones and blood vessels."

Old Morgan blew out a ring of smoke, his gaze profound.

"As long as your store of knowledge is sufficient and you can instantly analyze an object's composition, you can forcefully interfere with its internal structure, causing it to collapse or reorganize."

"I could draw the blueprints for those guns with my eyes closed."

"So all I had to do was move a finger and slightly tamper with the structure inside their barrels..."

As he spoke, Old Morgan's fingers trembled slightly, shaking ash onto his trench coat.

"But great power comes at a great cost."

He sighed and looked at his trembling hand.

"This move consumes an enormous amount of sanity. I'm old now. My sanity limit is declining, and recovery is slow. These old bones of mine need some time to recover."

Lu Yuan was slightly shaken by this.

No wonder the Night Watchers had only Old Morgan as a Knowledge Transcendent. Under normal circumstances, relying on knowledge to embark on Transcendence was not difficult.

So Old Morgan was actually a Third Order Transcendent. As long as he held the fort at the base, any enemy reliant on machinery and structure before him—

Was nothing more than a pile of toys that could be scrapped at any moment.

Was the power of Knowledge Transcendent really this formidable? Lu Yuan began to look forward to the abilities he would gain after his Forbidden Studies advanced.

"All right, get some rest early. Those lunatics probably won't dare come looking for you again anytime soon."

Old Morgan patted Lu Yuan on the shoulder, his hunched figure disappearing into the night.

The Logistics Department personnel who had repaired the Clinic left with him as well.

After seeing Old Morgan off, Lu Yuan returned to the operating table.

There was still a pool of uncleared black blood there, left behind by the man who had been taken away earlier.

Lu Yuan stared at the blood, and the scene from the operation flashed through his mind—the "Deep Blue" embedded in the core of that mechanical kidney.

It might come in handy.

Lu Yuan found a pair of copper tweezers in a cabinet, carefully picked up the bloodstained gauze, and placed it inside a sealed iron box.

He then covered it with a heavy lead lid and fastened the lock shut.

After finishing all this, he placed the box on a shelf in the corner of the Clinic, hiding it among a pile of clutter.

Only then did he lie back down on the bed, preparing to rest for a while.

The next morning.

A thin mist shrouded the streets, and early milk delivery carts rumbled over the Stone Slab road.